U.S. Navy

Capt. Kevin P. Lenox, USN, has been nominated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral.

The U.S. Navy is adapting its Atlantic forces to improve interoperability with its NATO allies while incorporating navies from non-alliance countries. Traditional North Atlantic naval activities now extend into the Arctic Ocean, where changing conditions have opened up new threat windows.

Rear Adm. Lance G. Scott, USN, has been assigned as commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, Norfolk, Virginia.

The U.S. Navy is focusing on parallel development of its new digital assets and capabilities as it works to rush advanced information innovations to the fleet. With the need for better technologies increasing coincidental to the rapidly evolving threat picture, the service has opted for concurrence as its main tool for implementing both upgrades and innovations.

A prototype U.S. Navy program is turning to blockchain technology to help track aviation parts throughout their life cycles. The approach automates what is now a mostly manual process and provides aircraft maintenance personnel with accurate, detailed information about each part’s origins and order/reorder status.

Capt. Jeffrey S. Scheidt, USN, has been selected for promotion to rear admiral and will be assigned as commander, Naval Information Warfighting Development Center, Norfolk, Virginia.

EmilyGrace Mate has been selected for appointment to the Senior Executive Service and for assignment as the special assistant and deputy chief of staff to the Secretary of the Navy.

Kratos Technology and Training Solutions Inc., San Diego, California, is being awarded a $46,217,067 firm-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for program planning, and technical and instructional services to support the government of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 goals. Work will be performed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (30 percent); Jubail, Saudi Arabia (30 percent); Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (30 percent); Ras al Ghar, Saudi Arabia (5 percent); and Orlando, Florida (5 percent), and is expected to be completed in August 2020. Foreign Military Sales funds in the amount of $15,405,689 are being obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.

Direct feedback and technical evaluations from warfighters and senior leadership participating in an amphibious, autonomous warfare exercise could affect the way the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps look at prototyping and rapidly acquiring technology. By pairing sailors and Marines with scientists and technologists, the Ship-to-Shore Maneuver Exploration and Experimentation Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (S2ME2 ANTX) will help increase the pace of innovation, says Dr. David E. Walker, director of technology, Office of Naval Research (ONR).

Cleaner, more modular software that can be updated with less fuss tops the U.S. Navy’s wish list as it girds its fleet for warfighting in cyberspace. These advances would not only help the service stay atop the wave of information system innovation but also contribute to better security amid growing and changing threats.

The Navy wants industry to develop operating systems and software from the start with fewer bugs. These software products should have fewer vulnerabilities that can be exploited by an adversary, which compound the service’s efforts at cybersecurity.

U.S. Navy commanders often struggle to deliver uninterrupted communications at sea without the added complications of providing command and control in denied or degraded environments. They face a double whammy of operational and technical hurdles. 

Processes for developing concepts of operations are complex, painstaking and exacting. Although technology sets the boundaries for what is possible, most of the hard work is decidedly nontechnical. It lies in determining which signals and messages have priority, which data sources and destinations are critical, and which ones can be relegated—and for how long.

U.S. Navy researchers hope to advance maritime countermine technology by developing fully autonomous systems that support the service’s latest ships and doctrine. Both new threats and innovative naval systems are remaking the undersea arena in ways that render obsolete conventional countermine

A Chinese military ship seized a U.S. underwater, unmanned research vessel, prompting the U.S. Defense Department to launch “appropriate government-to-government channels” with the Chinese government to immediately return the vessel. On Thursday, China unlawfully seized the unclassified ocean glider while sailing in the South China Sea, according to a Defense Department news release. 

The USNS Bowditch and the unmanned underwater vessel (UUV) are used to gather military oceanographic data such as salinity, water temperature and sound speed, the release states. 

It has been less than smooth sailing of late for the U.S. Navy as the superiority gap the sea service once held over adversaries rapidly narrows, its top officer says.

The onus to secure the maritime domain, both in a militaristic approach as well as commercially, falls to the United States as it jockeys to fortify global sea-based activity in an increasingly complicated environment. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, USN, penned a strategy that directs renewed focus on how the Navy might outmaneuver and outsmart its competitors.

This museum is dedicated to honoring the U.S. Navy. Features include naval artifacts, models, documents and art that chronicle the history of the sea service. Interactive exhibits commemorate wartime heroes and battles as well as activities during peace. Admission is free and the site is open to the public, but because the museum is located on the Washington Navy Yard, access depends on base security protocols. The museum closes only for major holidays, except for the Display Ship Barry, which is closed Sundays and some federal holidays as well as during inclement weather.

The U.S. Navy has killed some programs and accelerated others as it restructures its budget priorities. Robert O. Work, undersecretary of the Navy, gave the West 2011 Wednesday luncheon audience a bluntly candid assessment of which systems worked, which didn't and were canceled, and which are on probation. One of the key systems killed was the Marine Corps Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. While it had a troubled history, it was going well recently, but the Navy-acting on a recommendation from the commandant-killed the program because it was going to eat up too much of the Corps' budget in the future.

Rear Adm. Peter A. Gumataotao, USN, has been assigned commander, Carrier Strike Group Eleven, San Diego.

Maintaining maritime security will require humanitarian activities as well as traditional gunboat diplomacy, according to a U.S. Navy fleet commander. Vice Adm. Richard W. Hunt, USN, commander, U.S. Third Fleet, told the Kickoff Address audience at West 2011 that being able to provide disaster response and humanitarian assistance will be vital for ensuring maritime security. Many nations "could go either way" in either supporting or opposing U.S. national interests, the admiral explained. If the United States can respond rapidly and effectively when one of those nations suffers a natural disaster, that action could be the tipping agent that swings the nation into the U.S. column, he said. "It's not just kinetic power ...

The U.S. Navy faces an uncertain future if coming defense cuts strike at its shipbuilding budget. The sea service already is underfunded for its shipbuilding program, so cuts in that area could have severe ramifications in its mission-oriented capabilities. Ronald O'Rourke, a specialist in national defense with the Congressional Research Service, told a panel audience at West 2011 that the Navy did not have procurements that it can cut. The Navy did not use supplemental defense funding to procure new platforms, so it does not have programs that it can cut. "Some of the lower-hanging fruit in terms of efficiencies already have been picked," O'Rourke said. Nor will efficiencies alone be able to make up budget requirements.

Capt. Bryan P. Cutchen, USN, has been been selected for promotion to rear admiral and assignment as deputy chief of Navy Reserve, N-095, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.

It's rare that an audience of industry and service members at all ranks get the chance to hear first hand from the first of a kind. But that was the case after eating lunch on Wednesday of WEST 2010. Vice Adm. Jack Dorsett, USN, the Navy's first N2/N6 may have begun his speech by wondering why he was among other high-ranking military experts at the conference, but he followed through with revealing the latest approaches the Navy is taking to achieve information dominance. The Navy is developing new mini-road maps of sorts that address nearly a dozen topics, including undersea dominance, maritime ballistic C2 and improved maritime domain awareness.

The U.S. Navy established the Navy Cyber Forces (CYBERFOR) today at the Joint Expeditionary Base, Little Creek-Fort Story in Norfolk, Virginia. Vice Adm. H. Denby Starling II, USN, assumed command of CYBERFOR. He'll continue to serve as commander of NETWARCOM.

With its developing fleet of autonomous “guard dogs,” the U.S. Navy is becoming more lethal and protective using the same technology.

The sea service is capitalizing on a first-of-its-kind autonomous technology, with software originally developed by NASA for the Mars Rover, which can transform just about any surface vessel into an unmanned platform able to protect other ships or “swarm” hostile vessels, officials say.

A new facility allows scientists to test innovations 
for autonomous and unmanned systems.

A new manmade realm allows robots to learn how to scale sheer cliff walls, go from the ocean to the beach or cross hot, burning desert sands. In this environment, researchers can examine the machines’ every move and how they interact with human warfighters. And one day, these robots also may help save sailors’ lives at sea.